It is only in the past two centuries where demographics and the development of human populations has emerged as a subject in its own right, as industrialization and improvements in medicine gave way to exponential growth of the world's population. There are very few known demographic studies conducted before the 1800s, which means that modern scholars have had to use a variety of documents from centuries gone by, along with archeological and anthropological studies, to try and gain a better understanding of the world's demographic development. Genealogical records One such method is the study of genealogical records from the past; luckily, there are many genealogies relating to European families that date back as far as medieval times. Unfortunately, however, all of these studies relate to families in the upper and elite classes; this is not entirely representative of the overall population as these families had a much higher standard of living and were less susceptible to famine or malnutrition than the average person (although elites were more likely to die during times of war). Nonetheless, there is much to be learned from this data. Impact of the Black Death In the centuries between 1200 and 1745, English male aristocrats who made it to their 21st birthday were generally expected to live to an age between 62 and 72 years old. The only century where life expectancy among this group was much lower was in the 1300s, where the Black Death caused life expectancy among adult English noblemen to drop to just 45 years. Experts assume that the pre-plague population of England was somewhere between four and seven million people in the thirteenth century, and just two million in the fourteenth century, meaning that Britain lost at least half of its population due to the plague. Although the plague only peaked in England for approximately eighteen months, between 1348 and 1350, it devastated the entire population, and further outbreaks in the following decades caused life expectancy in the decade to drop further. The bubonic plague did return to England sporadically until the mid-seventeenth century, although life expectancy among English male aristocrats rose again in the centuries following the worst outbreak, and even peaked at more than 71 years in the first half of the sixteenth century.

This is a replication package for "the Persistence of the Harvest in Medieval England."Notes for replicating results from “The Persistence of the Harvest in Medieval England.”The two data files contain yields per acre and per seed, the rest of the control variables are the same for both files. Format is STATA data file. File 1: yieldsperacre.dta File 2: yieldperseed.dtaFile 1 is used to produce Panel A for most tables (i.e., those tables having two panels), file 2 produces Panel B for most tables. List of variables in data files: yldw: wheat yields (per seed or acre) with date stubyldo: oat yields (per seed or acre) with date stubyldb: barley yields (per seed or acre) with date stubsow: typical sow rates for wheat by periodsowo: typical sow rates for oats by periodsow: typical sow rates for barley by periodani: typical # of draft animals by manor by periodacres: mean acres sown by period by manorsheep: typical # of sheep by manor by periodprecip: measured precipitation by yearpreciptr: 30 year moving average of precipitationtemp: measured temperature by yeartempr: 30 year moving average of temperaturedpop: change in manor’s population density over periodpop: population level in perioddis: distance of manor to Londoncroptype: code for crop mix, from Campbellhustype: code for husbandry, from Campbellfarmtype: code for farming strategy, from Campbellsoiltype: code for soil make up, geology of manor, from CampbellThe provided STATA *.do files are listed by the relevant table or figure in the text that they produce. Each do-file uses either data file 1 or data file 2 depending on which panel of the relevant table is produced. To use the do file replace wd with your relevant data and working directory. All of the do files contain redundant code, they can be used for “stand alone” analysis in addition to producing the relevant table/figure.

It is estimated that Europe had an urbanization rate of approximately 8.5 percent in the year 1800. The Netherlands and Belgium were some of the most heavily urbanized regions, due the growth of port cities such as Rotterdam and Antwerp during Netherlands' empirical expansion, and the legacy of urbanization in the region, which stems from its wool and craft industries in medieval times. Additionally, the decline of their agricultural sectors and smaller territories contributed to a lower rural population. Scotland and England had also become more urban throughout the British Empire's growth, although the agricultural revolution of the previous two centuries, along with the first industrial revolution, then led to more rapid urbanization during the 19th century. In contrast, there was a large imbalance between the east and west of the continent; the two largest empires, Austria and Russia, had the lowest levels of urbanization in Europe in 1800, due to their vast territories, lower maritime presence, and lack of industrial development.

The Black Death was a pandemic that spread through Africa, Asia, and Europe. It was caused by a zoonotic disease known as the bubonic plague. This disease is transmitted by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. In England, the Black Death was an unprecedented catastrophic event dated between the years AD 1348-1350. There are multiple debates in relation to the exact mortality of the plague. However, it was estimated to have been between 30% and 60% of the population. Although traditionally it was considered that the plague had started a period of crisis, further studies indicate that the outbreak was part of a longer period of hardship that started in the 12th century. More recent studies have tackled analysing the period leading to the Black Death. However, these studies have focused exclusively on individuals living in London.This investigation aimed to evaluate childhood health in the period leading to the Black Death and its possible influence on the outbreak within and outside London to assess whether population human health was failing before the pandemic. The study sample comprised primary and secondary data from individuals from five sites outside of London (n=1341) and five sites from the London region (n=724).Individuals were examined for multiple indicators of physiological stress (cribra orbitalia, DEH), dietary indicators (vitamin C and D deficiency, folic acid), infections related to immunosuppression (tuberculosis), and estimates of disrupted growth and development (puberty stage estimation, VNC dimensions, and long bone osteometrics).Results showed evidence of stress during the late pre-Black Death period. However, when compared to the early pre- and post-Black Death periods, few statistically significant differences were found. The London region showed a significant decline in health during the Black Death period which represented not only the catastrophic outbreak but also a decline in health in the period immediately before the pandemic. This decline was followed by an improvement in health, especially for men, which reflected an increase in access to resources and higher wages after the plague. Changes in the health of females were less clear. Comparisons between regions showed different patterns, especially between males and females.These differences show the variability existing in the extra-London region concerning how the plague developed and affected rural populations. This study highlights the importance of studying health status not only after but also before a pandemic, as well as analysing regions outside London to create a more comprehensive image of health in medieval England.

Throughout the early modern period, the largest city in Italy was Naples. The middle ages saw many metropolitan areas along the Mediterranean grow to become the largest in Europe, as they developed into meeting ports for merchants travelling between the three continents. Italy, throughout this time, was not a unified country, but rather a collection of smaller states that had many cultural similarities, and political control of these cities regularly shifted over the given period. Across this time, the population of each city generally grew between each century, but a series of plague outbreaks in the 1600s devastated the populations of Italy's metropolitan areas, which can be observed here. Naples At the beginning of the 1500s, the Kingdom of Naples was taken under the control of the Spanish crown, where its capital grew to become the largest city in the newly-expanding Spanish Empire. Prosperity then grew in the 16th and 17th centuries, before the city's international importance declined in the 18th century. There is also a noticeable dip in Naples' population size between 1600 and 1700, due to an outbreak of plague in 1656 that almost halved the population. Today, Naples is just the third largest city in Italy, behind Rome and Milan. Rome Over 2,000 years ago, Rome became the first city in the world to have a population of more than one million people, and in 2021, it was Italy's largest city with a population of 2.8 million; however it did go through a period of great decline in the middle ages. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476CE, Rome's population dropped rapidly, below 100,000 inhabitants in 500CE. 1,000 years later, Rome was an important city in Europe as it was the seat of the Catholic Church, and it had a powerful banking sector, but its population was just 55,000 people as it did not have the same appeal for merchants or migrants held by the other port cities. A series of reforms by the Papacy in the late-1500s then saw significant improvements to infrastructure, housing, and sanitation, and living standards rose greatly. Over the following centuries, the Papacy consolidated its power in the center of the Italian peninsula, which brought stability to the region, and the city of Rome became a cultural center. Across this period, Rome's population grew almost three times larger, which was the highest level of growth of these cities.

In the year 1500, the share of Western Europe's population living in urban areas was just six percent, but this rose to 31 percent by the end of the 19th century. Despite this drastic change, development was quite slow between 1500 and 1800, and it was not until the industrial revolution when there was a spike in urbanization. As Britain was the first region to undergo the industrial revolution, from around the 1760s until the 1840s, these areas were the most urbanized in Europe by 1890. The Low Countries Prior to the 19th century, Belgium and the Netherlands had been the most urbanized regions due to the legacy of their proto-industrial areas in the medieval period, and then the growth of their port cities during the Netherlands' empirical expansion (Belgium was a part of the Netherlands until the 1830s). Belgium was also quick to industrialize in the 1800s, and saw faster development than its larger, more economically powerful neighbors, France and Germany. Least-urban areas Ireland was the only Western European region with virtually no urbanization in the 16th and 17th century, but the industrial growth of Belfast and Dublin (then major port cities of the British Empire) saw this change by the late-1800s. The region of Scandinavia was the least-urbanized area in Western Europe by 1890, but it saw rapid economic growth in Europe during the first half of the following century.